


Sleeping Arrangements

by Cardinal_Perplexus



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Books, M/M, Memories, Nightmares, Sleep
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-14
Updated: 2018-07-14
Packaged: 2019-06-10 09:13:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15288312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cardinal_Perplexus/pseuds/Cardinal_Perplexus
Summary: Fenris can't always sleep at the Hawke Estate.





	Sleeping Arrangements

**Author's Note:**

> A few weeks ago, my laptop ruined itself so spectacularly that I had to wipe it and reinstall my operating system. The only reason I have any of my personal data left is because I thought to make a copy of my hard drive before I started trying to work on anything. 
> 
> Now that my machine is up and running again, I'm looking through all of my stuff and trying to update my filing system to be sure I know where everything is, but I found a folder full of unfinished fanfiction that I don't remember writing. 
> 
> This may have been written two or three years ago. If it was supposed to continue in a particular direction, I don't remember how or why, and I didn't leave any notes. I'm posting it, in case someone liked reading this sort of thing.
> 
> Enjoy.

Fenris still wasn't used to sleeping in a bed. True, he still spent nights in the Hawke estate, but he didn't actually sleep much. Most of the time, he just sat in front of the fire, reading.

It wasn't a bad arrangement, actually. Whenever Hawke got home from running errands or killing bandits, Fenris was usually waiting for him in the library, a book and a bottle of wine at the ready. 

They would greet each other, Garrett would make his excuses for missing dinner, Fenris would play along, Orana or Bhodan would bring them a tray of something to eat, and they would read late into the night, stopping only when Hawke decided he couldn't keep resist temptation any longer  and start kissing at Fenris' ears. 

After that, well, there was certainly no sweeping involved.

But every night, Fenris would wake, in the terribly small hours of the morning, not knowing where he was. 

Slips and slivers of broken memories would crowd his mind, leaving him desperate and confused in a bed too soft to be comfortable, with a hot-blooded Ferelden using him as a teddy-bear. 

While cuddling with Garrett was not the worst way to wake up, it still took Fenris several anxious minutes to remember who he was, why his own limbs were so terribly heavy, and why his hair was white instead of . . . Black, or some other color. 

Whenever it happened, he would slip out of bed, wash his face, and sit in front of the fire, feeding it kindling and coal until it provided light and heat again. Then, he would read. 

The stories in Hawke's books usually distracted him from his own troubled mind. Thinking about it, Varric probably had a hand in the growing pile next to the fireplace. Though none of the dwarf's own works ended up in the stack, some of the books were old and rare, and not the kind of thing Hawke would go out looking for, unless at the paid request of some stranger. Either way, something new and interesting would appear every week or so, while more forgettable titles disappeared. Fenris' favorites would always end up on the mantle, standing like a badge of success, stained throughout with adventure stories and folk tales.

It was strange, though. In some of them, he could very clearly picture a woman, the same elvhen woman, with red hair and green eyes. Thinking about her made his head pound. Whenever her image clawed at the back of his eyes, forcing her thin, kind face into his mind, he would steal down to the cellars for a bottle of wine and switch to another book.

It didn't happen every night, but it happened often enough to put a bit of a dent in Hawke's wine cellar. 

But if there was one thing to be counted on, it was that Garrett would join him at some point. 

When Fenris was finally sure of himself again, totally lost in some story about a dragon with two souls, or a romance between an unlikely pair of Antivan Crows, Garrett would roll himself out of bed, dragging all of the covers across the floor with him, and reclaim his elvhen teddy-bear, mumbling something about being lonely before falling asleep again, using Fenris as a pillow. 

Fenris didn't mind, really. Truth be told, it _was_ a little lonely in front of the fire. He enjoyed Hawke's touch the same way he enjoyed quiet nights with wine and good books, but the bed and the memories simply proved to be too much.

He never mentioned it, though. He just didn't want to talk about it. And Garrett seemed to understand. 

And as stupid as it sounded, in front of a dying fire, a book open across his face and the Champion of Kirkwall drooling away on his stomach, Fenris never slept better.


End file.
